I’m just back from a short holiday in Italy and I always find these breaks are good for seeing things in a new (or least a slightly different) light. Often this results in changing the amount of time I allocate to my different personal (or collaborative) projects. Some in actuality I haven’t even started and others have meandered so an honest review is always handy anyway.

Part of this is figuring out what activities really matter. I recently came across this thought-provoking quote:

“Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one or a very few pivotal objectives, whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favourable outcomes.” – Richard Rumelt

Not just a highly favourable outcome, a cascade of outcomes! This puts things in quite a different light. So, in part, it means saying ‘no’ to things (and being comfortable and disciplined in this) but also to imaginatively think through the possible consequences of a ‘yes’. The use of the word ‘cascade’ emphasises anticipating not just one (major) jump ahead but (loosely) a few more.

The author of the quote is the Professor of Business & Society at UCLA Anderson and he’s written a well reviewed book on this topic: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. Here are some sample extracts:

Good strategy is rare. Many organizations which claim to have a strategy do not. Instead, they have a set of performance goals. Or, worse, a set of vague aspirations. It is rare because there are strong forces resisting the concentration of action and resources. Good strategy gathers power from its very rareness.

Competitors do not always respond quickly, nor do customers always see the value of an offering. Good strategy anticipates and exploits inertia.

Organizations experience significant entropy—the continual drift towards disorganization. Much of the useful work of managers and consultants is maintenance—the constant battle against entropy. Strategists must battle this never-ending drift towards disarray within their own organization. And they must try to exploit the disarray of their rivals.

Positive comments and conversations produce a chemical reaction too. They spur the production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that elevates our ability to communicate, collaborate and trust others by activating networks in our prefrontal cortex. But oxytocin metabolizes more quickly than cortisol, so its effects are less dramatic and long-lasting.

This “chemistry of conversations” is why it’s so critical for all of us – especially managers – to be more mindful about our interactions. Behaviors that increase cortisol levels reduce what I call “Conversational Intelligence” or “C-IQ,” or a person’s ability to connect and think innovatively, empathetically, creatively and strategically with others. Behaviors that spark oxytocin, by contrast, raise C-IQ.

Mr. Frost, my superb economics teacher in England, once shared the story of two people talking about a lecture given by the late Milton Friedman, the father of Monetarism. The first said, “Twenty years ago, I went to the worst lecture I’ve ever heard! Friedman gave it and I still remember how he just muttered on and on and all I could make out was the word ‘money.’” The second man responded, “If you can remember what the key message was some twenty years later, I think it might be the best lecture you ever heard!”

Indeed, Friedman’s singular message — that by controlling the supply of money, you can stabilize the whole economy — became, arguably, the most impactful economic theory of the second half of the 20th century. The point I wish to emphasize is not an economic one, but a human one: if you try to say too many things, you don’t say anything at all.

He highlights a few key lessons he’s learned over the years in giving effective presentations:

You can’t communicate what you haven’t defined i.e. be really clear, starting with yourself, about what you want to say

Lose the slides and have a conversation – something my friend David Gurteen has been saying for years!

Kill your darlings i.e. ruthless editing

Be repetitive without being boring i.e. focus on the one message you want to hammer home

I can remember the worst ones. Psychologists say when something works well we put it down to ourselves, and when something goes badly we put it down to luck. I try the opposite. All you can say is you learnt from each one.

Time management is a perennially popular topic, there are articles and books on it everywhere (mostly saying the same things over and again).

You often get the feeling that the aim is to try to extract the very last drop of ‘value’ from your allotted span and that there may be some hidden trick that you’re not aware of that will allow you to do this.

Over the years I’ve bought quite a few books of the subject and read lots of articles and posted a few myself as well.

In this general context I was interested to read a couple of articles recently on some of the more intangible aspects of time management. One was by the journalist Rosie Millard, which emphasised that time wasting may not be a bad thing at all and was motivated by a recent book:

Getting to the airport frightfully early, we now learn, is a bad strategy. In his book How Not to be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life, he summarises it thus: “If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re not doing it right.”

The article ends with:

Indeed, when I apply the Prof’s wisdom to my own crammed, time-poor, frantic lifestyle, I realise that the only moments I feel wholly relaxed are when my time-saving devices are nowhere near me, and I am actually “wasting time”. Running miles and miles along the Regent’s Canal tow path, for example. Or sitting leafing through ancient bird books at my parents’ house. I once spent 12 hours waiting for a plane at Sao Paulo airport. It’s the sort of thing that would have driven Prof Ellenberg crazy. I don’t even remember having a book to hand. I just drifted around and looked at people, who were also drifting around.

It was good.

That certainly rang a bell with me.

The other was by the writer A N Wilson on the value of a university education (prompted by record complaints by students that much of university teaching is not worth the fees):

That is why so much of university life should be a waste of time. The eight-week term flies past. If, in that time, you have fallen unsuitably in love (or, even more time-wasting, suitably in love); and/or if you have been acting in a play, or improving your squash, or becoming obsessed by Swedish cinema, the likelihood is that you will not have been giving enough time to your friends. And friendship, for many people at university, is its chief glory. This is the first time in your life when you are away from home, and away from the very limited circle of school contemporaries. You could, potentially, meet anyone from any walk of life, and this, for many people, is where friendships for life are formed.

Is it any wonder, in such circumstances, that you might neglect your work? Just a little?

Although the above viewpoint may be a little dated and whimsical, the underlying premise remains.